Moonlighting Dancers

Pre-COVID it seemed very common that dancers in smaller cities held another job. Probably the last 5 jobs I was told were Pharmacy tech, realtor, dental assistant, waitress at a family restaurant. I did not find many dancers working a 2nd job in larger cities specifically where a lot of customers coming in the club were tourists.

I'll go with generic numbers:

1. less than 50% across the country, in larger cities I'd say more like at least 75%

2. 75% (probably more)

3. tough one, over 50%, only reason I think that is, because many have children, deadbeat dads, and they can hide a lot of income working in a strip club. Not every stripper has children though. I've met plenty of strippers even up in their mid 30s that never had children.

Onlyfans or dispensaries

“What percentage of dancers do you think are getting some form of government assistance?”

I can only speak for Michigan but it’s around 98.9%

I never knew anyone with a Michigan Bridge Card until I got to know some dancers

1)&2) Really depend on where you work. I mean if the girl can work in the bigger cities and clubs they'll most likely make way more than enough to not need the second job. If the girl is working in a tiny town with only a couple or maybe 1 club its very unlikely they're getting enough traffic to have enough really good days. I've known at least one girl that would work Mon-Fri at the regular job and then show up on friday evening and saturday.

1. Its a mostly cash business means that the strip club itself probably doesn't give accurate reports on money in and payouts (I mean they have taxes on earnings too), then you're asking the stripper to be 100% honest about actual income. I mean come on its easy to underreport for the food stamps etc. especially if you're a "single" mom. I think only those that are having the second job you're asking about are potentially making enough that is reported for them not to at least have the option to be on some form of assistance.

Shailynn's numbers sound reasonable to me. Back when I was clubbing more, I knew a more than a few that were students. (Really students, not the fake-ass broke student feel-for-me schtick.) I knew some that had migrated from being servers. I didn't know many that had much of a job outside dancing, unless it was bachelor parties or various modelling (usually low-tier or artists' figures, but I did know one that did runways for a famous fashion designer). I think now with camsites and OnlyFans that takes away from the applicants for 'normal' jobs.

I kind of wonder how dancers in Vegas have been doing... the competition there seemed intense the last time I was there a few years before Covid.

I don't have percentage estimates but I think lots of them, especially the ones with kids are getting government assistance.

Also some married ones' working husbands are paying many of the bills.

I always assumed dancers were either full-time-dancers, or dancing was their side-gig – i.e. I assumed many of them danced to supplement their regular 9-to-5 job vs getting a job to supplement their dancing; or perhaps it’s two ways of saying the same-thing.

Talking about people’s money is obviously a personal-thing thus it’s not something I discuss w/ dancers so I really don’t have a clue – being a variety-guy I don’t have fave dancers I get to know well where we can share things like that – I’ve also learned to steer-away w.r.t. convos about real-life w/ dancers and tend to avoid these convos.

There are probably multiple variables w.r.t. whether a dancer is a full-time dancer or has another job – e.g. not all dancers can get hired at the good-money-clubs so perhaps some would like to be fulltime dancers but the $$$ isn’t consistent enough, etc?

Big kudos to dancers who can work at just one club, consistently, for years on end working 24+ hours per week. But even without the pandemic, ew no thanks for me

^ so you work another job other than dancing?

^ No. I am working on a credential that would allow me to be pretty freelance, but that is still pretty early in the works. I’d work another job if I wasn’t going out of town all the time though.

I mooned a dancer once

^^^ lol Heaving! I got to try it!

I would say in the little over a year I've been working I have seen more girls acquire A second job or work at 2 clubs (especially because some clubs are not open all week or during the day). When I tell customers that I am in school and I have another job a lot of them don't believe me. People really think we make thousands of dollars- The only girls I know that are actually making money right now our longtime veterans with very good regulars or girls that do extras. A lot of us that even used to make good money are now struggling to make $200. I thought things would get better now that the weather has gotten nicer. Not only myself but other girls that I'm friendly with were doing pretty decent this time last year and now we literally struggle to make 200.

I am also not in an area that is particularly wealthy or is a vacation or tourist area. A lot of girls that I know that have been dancing for over 10 years have even told me that back of the day you did not need a second job but now it's becoming more and more common

1. I'd guess about 50-55% now. Back in prosperous economic times like the early 2000's, I'd say it was 96%.
2. I'd guess 45-50% from what I'm hearing.
3. 70%

I can only think of 2 that have mentioned outside jobs. One said she was a para legal and worked from home. The other said she was in marketing, whatever that is.

Pre-COVID a lot of the dancers in this neck of the woods were dancing full time and a fair % of them had kids. But nowadays there are a lot more younger part-time girls who are doing other things during the day.

It makes sense I suppose. When the clubs shut down, many of those working mothers had to take day jobs and completely reorganize their lives, including their childcare situations. Their kids also got used to having them home at night. It's no surprise that most chose not to reverse engineer it all over again once the clubs opened back up.

My experiences are mostly from night shift though. The dayshift crews still seem to trend more towards full time dancers.

As far as govt assistance, I met one once who told me her story.

She was late 20's. She came to my table and asked me my name and wrote my name on her hand. I asked her why she did that. Before she was a dancer she had a head injury at her job. Seizure meds and bad short term memory. She was on Social Security disability and had a disability insurance for life from her employer.

She said she worked at the club more for the social interaction. Just a couple of days a week. "Besides, my tits and pussy still work fine" I took that as an invitation for VIP. I paid her, she hopped on and we were done fairly quickly. We had lots of time left so we talked and played around. After a while she said "We should fuck while we're back here." She hopped on again. After we were done again she asked if I had paid her. I pointed to the hundreds in her garter and she thanked me and left.

goldmonger, did you pay her twice? or just once for the time? LOL

I would say it depends on the area. In a place like Orlando, you aren't going to make enough stripping to only dance for income. In Fort Lauderdale, Miami, or Tampa, you definitely could get by on dancing alone; EXCEPT for the sky-high cost of homes and apartments. Only a top-tier dancer is going to be able to enter the market on dancing alone. As Brandon continues to tank the economy, I would expect to see more and more dancers working multiple jobs and living with roommates. Jobs I've been told by dancers are pharmacy technician, office manager of her husband's legal practice, Best Buy Geek Squad tech expert, and personal fitness trainer.

As far as government assistance, it varies. I knew one who had Lupus and was on Medicaid. Obviously, having bastard children are the golden ticket to government subsidies but baby damage can shorten the shelf life of a dancer as well. I wonder how they game the welfare-to-work requirements and hide the true income of their 1099 status to continue to qualify for assistance? I know one who had MS and Medicaid, a bastard kid, and drove a high-end Lincoln Aviator everywhere.

@Rick, how long were clubs shut down for from covid? I wasnt into clubbing then and am very curious what happened. Id imagine OTC must have become extremely popular and cheap at that time? Did dancers do OTC for cheap. Cheating increased, dancers who didn’t offer otc began to offer it?

I talked to a 24 year old dancer today who has an accounting degree. She is young, pretty and fit. She told me that she quit her accounting job to strip full time. I asked her why and she said she was making more money at the club part time. (I think she made a big mistake as she was working Saturdays. The weekdays will not be as lucrative.)

From what I can tell, she does not do extras or OTC, but who knows with that. She is sexy and her moves are very sensual, but does not cross the line that I want her to cross.

I really have no clue. I know the super hot ones in these upscale clubs do not need it, I see how much they make. But I don't know how many of these girls would even tell me if I asked. I'm sure weekend night girls, they got something else going on in the daytime be it some minimum wage type job or school.

I suspect that any guesses given here will be mostly that. Most dancers have a narrative that they've constructed for their customers that has no connection to reality. If you've known a dancer for a long period, then they might start opening up a bit. But most dancers want an air gap between their dancer lives and their personal lives. I don't begrudge that. But, as guesses go...

1. What percentage of dancers do you think make all of their income from solely stripping?

All of their income?... a relatively small percentage. But most of their income?... a much, much higher percentage.

1. What percentage of dancers do you think work at least one other job besides stripping?

I've met very few dancers who didn't have something else going on; a side gig of some sort. One of my previous favorites now flips houses in Atlanta, which was a side gig she started here in RI. She doesn't dance anymore. There's also the distinction between stripping and other sex work. Escorting, camming, and OnlyFans are all other forms of making a living that aren't stripping.

I think that there are very few strippers who hold down actual employed positions while stripping. One of the things most strippers actually like about the work is the flexibility. That goes away the moment they take on a full-time or even part-time job.

1. What percentage of dancers do you think are getting some form of government assistance?

No idea, really. In a dive bar that has low traffic and customers with shallow pockets, I suspect that government assistance happens a lot more than in a more popular club with paying customers.

One I liked worked with another dancer at a shop that did sales and service on commercial lawn mowers. They seemed to see it as a security job, besides just more income.

One of the girls did seem to gravitate to higher mileage clubs in San Francisco. But she had also been pushing the envelope and getting more off stage money from guys on the slow day shift as well.

Today they both would be prime candidates for My Organization.

SJG

The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter - 2013 School of Rock AllStars Team 4 youtube.com

===> "3) What percentage of dancers do you think are getting some form of government assistance?"

Pre-COVID when there was a healthy % of single mothers, I would have answered "lots of them." In fact one of the huge benefits of dancing is the ability to hide cash income and keep the reportable number low enough to qualify for gov't goodies.

Just the value of heavily subsidized healthcare for her and her kids is enormous. If she has two kids, then she is likely getting almost $800+ per month in subsidized insurance premiums. Then add monthly SNAP and WIC food benefits as well as a yearly Earned Income Tax Credit payout and we are talking about many thousands of dollars per year.

1-2) roughly 50-50. 3) stripper-PL privilege means we don't repeat anything that could be used as evidence of a crime.